And On That Bombshell
by Idoloni
Summary: It's the Day of Black Sun, and the Capital of the Fire Nation is empty. [twoshot]
1. Chapter 1

**And On That Bombshell**

.\:/.

It's the Day of Black Sun, and the Capital of the Fire Nation is empty.

The streets are silent and the fortifications lie still; nothing moves or makes a sound. The invading forces are alone and afraid - the Fire Nation never backs down from a fight. _Never_. Even if it means the mass slaughter of their own, it seems.

And then there's movement, just through the gates, and a hundred weapons are drawn. A young man - a boy, nearly - dressed not in armour but in everyday robes strides forth, one pale hand gripping a white flag as if his life depends on it. He stops fifty paces away, unrolls with shaking hands a scroll from his belt and stutters, "T-the Fire Lord would like to formally welcome the Avatar and the Avatar's c-companions to the Fire Nation, and invites them to the Palace to discuss the s-status of the war." The boy bows so sharply his topknot nearly comes undone, and marches stiffly away, visibly terrified of turning his back on so many armed insurgents.

The invaders stare after him, and then at each other. The invitation is obviously a trap, but nevertheless this isn't _anything_ like what they had planned and nobody is entirely sure what to do. Time is wasting and the eclipse is approaching, but there's not a single firebender to fight anywhere but the Palace. It feels like the rug has been pulled out from under them - since when did the Fire Nation _care_ about its citizens?

There's a brief argument among the assembled warriors - it is readily agreed that there's no way in the Four Nations that this _isn't_ a trick, but beyond that accord is minimal. The Avatar, still so troubled by the concept of defeating the Fire Lord so _permanently_, is looking almost ecstatic at the prospect of talking it out rather than battling, but nobody else is even close to sharing his opinion. Katara is the most vocal about just getting out while they still can and trying again another day, but Sokka refuses to just _leave _- damnit, he's spent _months_ refining and perfecting this most marvellous of plans, and the mere _thought _of abandoning it rankles.

The dispute continues until someone - someone short but definitely not sweet, and down-to-earth in more than one way - points out that the eclipse is _in like fifteen minutes guys, just make a decision already!_ The decision is put to a vote, and when it comes out a perfect tie Toph rolls her sightless eyes and marches towards the gate the Fire Nation messenger had come from, and that is that.

The earthbender is quickly scooped up onto Appa's back - if they're going to make the Palace before the eclipse, they've got to move fast.

From above the city they are granted a better view of the streets, and still there is not the slightest whisper of motion. The entire city has been evacuated, and the four invitees have to wonder exactly how long the Fire Nation has known about the Plan - you can't pack up an entire city overnight, and even a week or two would be pushing it.

They touch down directly in front of the palace, and they can't help but marvel at it; for all that the Fire Nation is evil, they sure are good at architecture. The four of them are greeted by another nervous, plainly-clothed citizen who leads them through the echoing halls to the throne room. Sokka inquires about the whereabouts of, well, _the whole city_, but gets only a terse "Gone." for his trouble. It's understandable; the poor woman can't know for sure that the invaders are here _only_ to give the Fire Lord the boot. Katara asks a somewhat less treasonous and more personal question and the woman replies, "I volunteered." The waterbender would have asked her to explain further, but she pushes open a door more grandiose than any they've seen so far, and finally the throne room is revealed.

The floor is tiled with black, and huge obsidian pillars stretch towards a distant ceiling. The pillars' bases are shrouded with thick red fabric, but on some the cloth has drooped enough to reveal glimmering gold carvings and clearly nobody was brave enough to try obscuring the equally elaborate tops. The room is well-lit; the potted fires perfectly equidistant, their dancing flames reflecting in the polished black marble. The far wall, like the pillars, is draped in varying shades of red; this room is so wide and the ceiling so high that they've had to sew together all manner of fabrics just to cover it, and despite their best efforts flashes of gold still peek through the gaps. It seems almost spartan when compared to the corridors they have just passed, and against this relatively drab backdrop the opulence of the throne stands out like a canyon crawler at a coronation.

There's no mistaking the figure lounging there, and three of the four guests pale at the sight while the fourth looks - well, _senses_ - on in confusion. Long dark hair, pale skin, golden eyes glinting in the light - the burn scar as livid as it had ever been, and the five-pronged crown resting in his immaculate topknot.

"Hello," says the Fire Lord, "Zuko here."

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN:** I promise that this will, one day, become a twoshot. For now, though, I will mark it as complete._


	2. Chapter 2

**And On That Bombshell**

.\:/.

It was pitifully easy, in the end.

He hadn't been planning on it; not at first. Leaving Ba Sing Se, his only thoughts had been of Home - he wasn't sure when the capitalisation of the concept had occurred, but given the amount of time he devoted to daydreaming about it, it wasn't entirely undeserved.

It had been a long boat ride back to the Fire Nation, however. Even with the threat of the princess' wrath hanging over the crewmen's heads, it was weeks until the Gates of Azulon appeared on the horizon - weeks trapped on a ship with his sister. She had always been... _abrasive_ and ever so slightly terrifying, but if she wasn't she simply would not be the Azula they all knew and loved. Because, yes, he did love his little sister. Yes, she was a pathological liar and more pointlessly cruel than a cat-orca. Yes, an unfortunate amount of his worst memories contained her smug grin, and he was pretty sure that she'd tried to assassinate him twice. (Maybe three times, if you count that once with the paper cranefish and the cherry tree...)

But despite all that, Azula was still his sister. They'd grown up together, sequestered away from any other playmates (until Azula convinced Father to send her to the Royal Fire Academy For Girls and came back with two new shadows, but that was later), and besides lessons and training they'd had only each other to turn to for entertainment. Oh, there was Mother and Father too, but Father had his duties (although, thinking about it, he had always seemed to have time for Azula…) and Mother could not be expected to spend every minute of every day attending to her children.

Nevertheless...it had been three years since he'd spent any significant length of time in her presence. There'd been indications, the few times they'd met over the last few months, of something having changed, but he'd never been able to gauge the true extent. The vicious satisfaction she found in fighting her brother, _that _was nothing new, and nor was her complete disregard for their Uncle, but the sheer hostility towards everything and everyone - well. Azula had never been particularly well-balanced or emotionally stable, but neither had she been quite this...volatile. He found himself avoiding her more and more, and on one memorable occasion he actually apologised to a crewman for her behaviour. Agni knew he'd never been kind to his _own _crew, but he had _standards_. There were some lines that you did not cross.

The words that had become his childhood mantra were suddenly at the forefront of his mind again. _Azula always lies_. It was a fact of life, like the rising and setting of the sun or the ocean tide.

In Pianzi Huang, their last port of call in the Earth Kingdom, he bought a handful of white jade leaves.

.\:/.

They reached the Palace, and were welcomed by the cheers of their people.

Privately, he wondered if they would have cheered harder if what was returning home had been his ashes; judging by their poorly-hidden expressions, the nobles he passed surely would.

.\:/.

His first meeting with his father went well, it seemed. His honour had been returned, and his status as heir to the throne restored. And yet...and yet there was something in the way his father looked at him that set his teeth on edge. The way he looked at the left side of his son's face, and let a smile tug at the corner of his lips.

.\:/.

He visited his uncle, twice. He'd been angry, but anger had always been how he dealt with that sinking sense of helplessness that had all too often stolen over him in the past three, no, six years. There was no question that he still loved the man - more, perhaps, now that the towering pedestal upon which he'd placed his home and his honour and his father's love crumbled a little more every day - but it appeared as though the feeling was no longer reciprocated.

In the privacy of his own chambers, he mourned, and he wondered what he could do to fix this. To fix everything.

.\:/.

He found himself listening to the servants' conversations, something he hadn't done since he was a young child. He'd since been taught either that eavesdropping was rude, or that the chatter of the simple-minded attendants was as far beneath him as the bottom of the ocean, and that he should ignore it. He was beginning to doubt the second reason's merit.

The maids whispered of a war meeting to come, of the Comet and of their suspicions.

The Crown Prince came to two distinct realisations: the Palace staff were a lot more perceptive than anybody had ever given them credit for, and his father was not the good man he had always been held up as.

.\:/.

He timed it well. The day before he and Azula left for Ember Island, he made a visit to his father; a simple chat over tea, or as much of a chat as one could have between the Fire Lord and the Crown Prince. It was a simple matter of slipping the poison into the teapot, on the premise of showing off the skills he'd learnt in Ba Sing Se. He phrased it in a mocking way, of course, an affirmation of his filial loyalty; as if to say, _look, Father, Uncle had three years in which to corrupt me and yet here I am, incapable of even brewing tea_.

Later he would deny all sincerity in his smile as his father snorted in amusement - the first time since Azula had begun firebending, he believed. But he could not afford any more weakness, and though it was difficult to damp down the flickers of pleasure, the sake of the world depended on his ruthlessness.

After he was certain that the Fire Lord had drunk a large enough dose, he made his excuses and left for his own chambers - where he'd left the antidote. White jade leaves held a potent poison, but one quite easily treated - so long as the doctors knew the cause. The bush did not grow outside of the Earth Kingdom, and its deadly reputation had been severely quashed by that of its close relative, not to mention that the symptoms of white jade poisoning were so similar to so many other viruses and toxins. Slow-acting and pleasant-tasting, it was the perfect assassin's tool; the irony in using it didn't escape him either.

.\:/.

Three days into their holiday, the Fire Lord's children received a summons from the Capital. The doctors tried everything they could, they said, but nothing would halt the progress of the sudden illness. If anything, their ministrations had accelerated the spread.

Fire Lord Ozai's last official act was to sentence his physician to death.

His last informal act was to smile proudly at his successor: his father's son, after all.

.\:/.

He would have to move fast, now. Azula's patience had grown in the years he had been away, but surely not by much. If he knew his sister - and he _did_ - she had been plotting his own tragic death since he stepped foot on that boat. Their father's impromptu demise had buggered up her plans for sure, but if an opportunity presented itself, she would not hesitate.

Azula was a genius; Ba Sing Se had only emphasised this. But, in some ways, she was as predictable as clockwork. She liked to get her hands dirty - especially when her troubles were personal, and how much more personal could you get than sibling rivalry?

Dealing with her would be difficult, particularly as he had no desire to kill her. She was psychotic, yes, sadistic and brutal, but bumping off a father he'd never wholly, truly loved and trusted was one thing, and murdering a sister he'd grown up with, played with, enjoyed the company of? That was _quite_ another.

To get her safely out of the way, she would need to be incapacitated. This created problems, of course. He was well aware of how his fourteen-year-old sister was said to have bested eight Imperial Firebenders at once, and though this was likely an exaggeration he did not want to risk his people's lives for his admittedly misplaced affection; her firebending would have to go.

...Except, from a young age, both he and she had been taught to recognise by sight, smell, touch and taste every known bending-suppressant in existence. Like every Fire Nation child, they'd been heavily warned of solar eclipses; even partial ones diminished bending strength, and nobody wanted to deal with panicked children capable of starting housefires every few years. There was one coming up, but it was _far _too far away - and if indeed he was still alive by then, he intended to be _very_ busy.

So - _was_ there even a way to do this that would not necessitate sororicide?

.\:/.

He decided very quickly that he hated the throne room. He hated a _lot_ of rooms in the Palace - often for how jarring they now were, after three years spent either on a rusty old ship or out on the road - but the throne room was the worst. It was beautiful, yes, all brilliant gold and shining marble, but he hated how every aspect of the room was geared for maximum intimidation.

If he was to be Fire Lord for more than a few weeks, then this would have to change. He did not want to be associated with the same arrogance and contempt as his forebears; that wasn't something he could stomach anymore. If he pulled this off, if he survived long enough to at least set the wheels in motion, his Nation would need to be humble. No more prejudice, no more pretension.

Azula was _not_ pleased when he ordered the curtain of flames extinguished for good and the elaborate gold ornamentation covered, and many of the nobles nearly had a conniption.

He was just glad that they weren't aware of his long-term plans for the room; they would surely have struck him down then and there.

At least Mai approved.

.\:/.

He took a chance. In a million parallel universes, he was dead by sundown; in this one, all he got was a teary Ty Lee, who was eventually mollified by his heartfelt assurances.

Azula would not come to any harm; not on his watch. He wanted to end the war, he told her, end the suffering, end the pain. Azula...as much as he loved her, Azula would not support him in this. She did not care about the misery their nation had inflicted on the world, and she would not stand with him to heal it.

Ty Lee had travelled the Earth Kingdom, she'd seen their anguish, and their dead, white auras. She'd seen her best friend's apathy. It didn't take a lot of thought to determine the best course of action.

Ty Lee's only stipulation was that _she _got to guard the princess' cell.

.\:/.

The Capital was in turmoil. Fire Lord Ozai had been dead barely two weeks; Fire Lord Zuko had been crowned just a few days ago, and half his advisers had been sacked. And now- _now_, the princess had been arrested for treason, and the Dragon of the West released, the Fire Lord said, from his wrongful imprisonment.

And then it was revealed that the Avatar planned to invade, on the first day of the eighth month - during the dreaded eclipse. Panic struck the people of the largest city in the Fire Nation, but the Fire Lord had a plan.

The people were ordered to evacuate. _Visit distant relatives for a few weeks, go on holiday. If you haven't the means or anywhere to go, we will provide it. If you must stay - illness or age or occupation - repurpose your cellars, and hide._ Lists were written up, and followed to the letter; house by house, the Capital was abandoned. Nobody wanted to get caught in the crossfire when the invasion came, or at least had friends and relatives to drag them away.

A few - a scant few - gathered their courage and knocked on the Palace gates. Men and women alike, they were mostly young non-benders, skilled in steel rather than fire - and they wanted to help. They were welcomed with open arms - after being thoroughly investigated by the Home Guard and the Dragon of the West himself, of course.

.\:/.

There was a strange tension between the General and his nephew, everyone said. Nobody knew what their relationship had been like before their return, but though they had not witnessed anything different there was a unanimous agreement that something was wrong.

Iroh was a clever man; he had realised precisely what had occurred the minute the guards had brought news of the old Fire Lord's illness. Only Zuko would have both the motive and the opportunity, and only Zuko would have known to use white jade. It was a perfect little plot - something he would have expected from Azula or Ozai himself, and therein lay the problem.

Zuko had never shown much similarity to his sister or his father beyond appearance, and even then he looked more like his mother. He had a good heart, and though he had often been blinded by his intense desire to regain his honour, he had always tried to do the right thing in the end. He was his mother's son, his uncle's nephew; or so Iroh had thought.

Zuko did not flinch when Ozai was mentioned. He did not frown or look uncertain. Iroh did not blame the boy for his lack of grief, and neither, truly, did anybody else. But the General knew what the others did not, and despite the pride welling in his chest as Zuko executed his evacuation plan, he could not help but worry.

.\:/.

The day came.

The exodus had gone well; all that remained were the sick and the elderly and those who cared for them. The Palace was empty of all but the Fire Lord, his uncle and the dozen volunteers - well, and Azula and her two guards, but they would not be anywhere near the action today.

The eclipse was approaching; Xin was already on his way to the landing area, and Yuanyi would soon be in position outside the Palace. The remaining volunteers were scattered through the halls leading to the throne room - off the ground, to minimise the Avatar's earthbending master's advantage, and despite his orders for the contrary. He was certain that his uncle had something to do with it, and he hoped that perhaps after this he could try to bridge the rift growing between them.

For now, though, he would wait.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN:** I apologise for any spelling errors, and particularly any missing 'd's - my laptop is old, and the keyboard terribly frustrating._

_I'll let you decide what goes down after this :)_


End file.
